eviously rubbing with a little oil. This plaster
generally gives ease in acute pains, especially of the nervous
kind.--Blistering plaster is made in a variety of ways, but seldom of a
proper consistence. When compounded of oils, and other greasy
substances, its effects are lessened, and it is apt to run, while pitch
and rosin render it hard and inconvenient. The following will be found
the best method. Take six ounces of venice turpentine, two ounces of
yellow wax, three ounces of spanish flies finely powdered, and one ounce
of the flour of mustard. Melt the wax, and while it is warm, add the
turpentine to it, taking care not to evaporate it by too much heat.
After the turpentine and wax are sufficiently incorporated, sprinkle in
the powders, and stir the mass till it is cold. When the blistering
plaster is not at hand, mix with any soft ointment a sufficient quantity
of powdered flies, or form them into a plaster with flour and vinegar.

PLATE. The best way to clean plate, is to boil an ounce of prepared
hartshorn powder in a quart of water; and while on the fire, put in as
much plate as the vessel will hold. Let it boil a little, then take it
out, drain it over the saucepan, and dry it before the fire. Put in
more, and serve it the same, till all is done. Then soak some clean rags
in the water, and when dry they will serve to clean the plate. Cloths
thus saturated with hartshorn powder, are also the best things for
cleaning brass locks, and the finger plates of doors. When the plate is
quite dry, it must be rubbed bright with soft leather. In many plate
powders there is a mixture of quicksilver, which is very injurious; and
among other disadvantages, it makes silver so brittle that it will break
with a fall. In common cases, whitening, properly purified from sand,
applied wet, and rubbed till dry, is one of the cheapest and best of all
plate powders.

PLATING OF GLASS. Pour some mercury on a tin foil, smoothly laid on a
flat table, and rub it gently with a hare's foot. It soon unites itself
to the tin, which then becomes very splendid, or is what they call
quickened. A plate of glass is then cautiously, passed upon the tin
leaf, in such a manner as to sweep off the redundant mercury, which is
not incorporated with the tin. Leaden weights are then to be placed on
the glass; and in a little time the quicksilvered tin foil adheres, so
firmly to the glass, that the weights may be removed without any danger
of its fal